


Mask

by StAnni



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 11:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19393660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: When she glances back at him following her, her eyes are a dangerous green and his chest constricts – being back, seeing her again, he has been considering how reckless they were when they were younger.  They did unthinkable things – sometimes to each other.Now his worry, cold concern for her follows her as if she is walking on a tightrope.





	Mask

He opens the door to the manor and she enters quietly, walking silently and ahead of him – untethered. Her hands pull the pockets of her leather jacket – the black is sleek and taut against her narrow back. 

When she glances back at him following her, her eyes are a dangerous green and his chest constricts – being back, seeing her again, he has been considering how reckless they were when they were younger. They did unthinkable things – sometimes to each other.   
Now his worry, cold concern for her follows her as if she is walking on a tightrope. 

When they were younger she’d meet his gaze with a guff or a smirk. She doesn’t now. She eyes him warily.  
They enter the study and she moves to the other side of the couch – hands still firmly in her pockets – keeping a distance but she pauses, almost in-discernibly, when she sees his mask on the desk.

“Can I get you a drink?” He offers and he feels ridiculous doing it. To her credit she ignores him, and he watches her eyes follow the fall of the new curtains but he doesn’t say anything – waiting for her to talk first. If she’s impressed at the restoration she doesn’t show it.

“Where’s Alfred?” She finally asks, but not with too much curiosity. “He mostly stays in the city.” He answers her, wondering if she knows about the apartment there. She probably does. 

Her steps are soundless as she moves through the room, all the while keeping a wide berth. “And your fiancé?” She asks, utterly without vitriol or, for that matter, without any discernible interest in the answer. 

So she has been digging.

His voice IS even and his eyes waiting to meet hers “I didn’t know when to tell you.” 

It’s a truth that has been hanging between them – no time like the present to face it. When she does look at him, a glance, throwaway, her eyes are distant and she nods, the tilt of her chin lifting slightly. “Why would I care?” She asks and it is everything but innocuous. 

He doesn’t bite, wouldn’t do him any good anyway – she is much better at verbal assaults than he is. “I supposed you wouldn’t.” He says and he is only halfway bluffing. 

Her smile, the first real one he has seen, all sharp charm – the old Selina . “Relax.”

“Anyway” She continues, taking her hands out of her pockets to shake her curls from her hoodie. “I’m not here to shoot the shit.”, she shrugs, “My money?” 

Gordon has given Selina unofficial C.I status in an attempt to lessen her own criminal impact on Gotham. It’s not the way Bruce would have wanted him to deal with it, but having been out of the loop, he doesn’t have much say. For tonight Bruce has offered to effect Selina’s payment – as it would have to occur very much away from any prying eyes – and ended up being the only excuse to see her.

He hands her the envelope and she doesn’t take it, waits for him to set it down on the table.  
She doesn’t want to come closer.  
“You can’t hate me that much” He tries to joke. She doesn’t smile again.

“I do.” 

It may be said in jest, he has no way of telling with her anymore. It shatters him nonetheless.

She looks away again, already, oblivious to her effect on him – or worse, unaffected herself. But then she does take a step closer, slides the envelope from the table and then stops – caught by the mask again. 

He looks at her looking at the mask. 

Her perfect black lacquered nail tick-ticks against it – her brow furrowed ever so slightly. “I still can’t believe it.” She says, as if speaking to the mask and her voice, with that new terseness now, is softer – a waver breaking through the surface. 

He doesn’t move next to her gripped by the ridiculous fear that if he should turn to her, shift the air around him, that she would disappear. As if she was the one who disappeared.

“Believe what?”

Her finger stops, a hairbreadth away from the black surface – and she looks at him. They are closer now than they have been all night, in fact, they are closer now than they have been since he came back. “That you’re back.” She says, as if it is obvious. “But that you’re gone.” 

“What does that mean?” He asks, because she is the only person who can drive him to ask the questions he knows he doesn’t want the answers for.

She leans on the heavy reading chair, eyes steady on him now. “What’s it like to be back?” She doesn’t care about the answer and he counters, firmer now. “I’m still exactly the same person, Selina.” 

To this she does smirk, a raise of her eyebrow, mirth in her cheeks – and he remembers her just like this, ten, twelve years ago – tipping up to kiss him. Her armor is disarming and for a moment, a split second, he allows the familiar rise of frustration to better him. “Maybe I am different. Maybe I’m better.”

She doesn’t flinch but her eyes shift in misunderstanding. And it's too late. What has not yet been lost is lost. 

“Yeah. Maybe.” She says turning away, her tone light and vindicated. 

She doesn’t look back at him as she steps out to the darkened balcony.


End file.
